


Flower Bed of Daffodils

by Jin_Saito



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Aruani Week, F/M, aruani week 2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 06:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30118341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jin_Saito/pseuds/Jin_Saito
Summary: Romance blooms where buds flower. At least, that is the case for Armin and Annie.
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Annie Leonhart, Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhart, AruAni - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	Flower Bed of Daffodils

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for AruAni Week 2021 Day 3: Flowers. Enjoy!

Annie hears the bell of the flower shop ring.

“For the love of— Armin, it’s _too_ early.”

“Then move the opening hour? Won’t make a difference, though, because I’ll still be your very first customer.”

The girl behind the counter could only roll her eyes, putting on her apron and fixing her hair to her signature bun. No bangs fall on the right side of her face, however, as she keeps them secure with a hairpin whenever she’s in the store. To Armin, it’s always refreshing to look at Annie like this, but this doesn’t necessarily mean she’s less attractive to his eyes when she’s out of her uniform.

Annie owns a flower shop passed down to her by her grandmother. It’s something she cannot easily let go even though she has the freedom to seek a different career path. Ironically, she’s not fond of them. She claims to not understand the beauty most people see in flowers. She is quite knowledgeable about them, although she merely has to because of her job.

When Hitch came out carrying a pot of peonies and catches a glimpse of their first customer, she bolts towards him. “Look who’s here? Our number 1 customer!” she playfully slaps his back.

A little too hard.

Hitch doesn’t pay heed to Armin’s yelp of pain and instead, brazenly humiliates him in front of her employer. “Which flowers do you already have? Carnations and orchids? We have peonies now for that lucky lady~” She winks at Armin, only for him to give her a warning glare in return. He originally hadn’t intended to tell Hitch about whatever plan he has, but she was able to figure it out in a day. Armin has been dreading Hitch’s unending teasing since then.

Annie crosses her arms on her chest, sending daggers at the rowdy two through her icy scowl. “You’re not getting paid to chit-chat with our customers, Hitch. Get your ass moving.” Her employee—and friend—could only giggle in response. “Of course! I’d be more than glad to help our dear customer’s plan come to fruition—”

“I’d like some peonies, please. Three of them,” Armin says hastily in hopes of shutting her mouth.

Time and again, Armin would visit and purchase a different assortment of flowers. Annie may be quiet, but she’s no fool. She notices how Armin has been buying flowers perfect for a bouquet; however, she mentally notes how by the book he is when choosing them. “The jerk must’ve been researching about them a little too much,” she once breathed while tending to some of the flowers alone before her workers arrived.

After the peonies, Armin opted for white lilies, then finally, roses. He still visited a day after his last purchase, but oddly didn’t appear after that. The day went completely normal, but Annie would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that Armin’s absence of company made the day dull for her. She inwardly enjoys the noise at most times, and she loves spending time with him, Hitch, and Mina after closing time. Speaking of the latter, she called in sick a few days after Armin stopped visiting.

Annie doesn’t mind, but she becomes suspicious of this. However, she buries her suspicions at the back of her mind lest she wants to feel guilty if Mina ever did end up ill that time.

* * *

“Hi, good morning!” Armin chirps one Sunday morning. It’s the first time he showed up in Annie’s flower shop ever since he stopped. Although her face remains as is, he notices a certain glow come back to her features when she saw him again. His heart aches in exuberance at the sight. “Good morning, Armin!” When Mina—who has already recovered from her “illness”—locked eyes with him, they both know it’s time. Hitch, of course, is part of this little scheme of his, and all three of them, as well as Eren and Mikasa, know every single detail about it.

Annie is sharp and perceptive, but not when it comes to affairs of the heart.

“Good morning.” Annie greets back. Armin doesn’t purchase any flowers this time and simply stays in the shop to chat with the girls while, of course, testing the waters and helping them out without asking for anything in return. A few minutes after closing shop, Hitch takes a swift glance at the wall clock and grins. His plan is now to be put in action. “Mina! Hurry up, we’re gonna drop by the cosmetics store tonight, remember?” The pigtailed girl looks at the clock as well and acts surprised, but her gasp came out naturally. “Oh, you’re right! Hold on, I’ll just put these away,” she says as she motions to the leftovers of trimmed flower stems.

Hitch and Mina bid their goodbyes to Armin and Annie after their tasks are done. “That’s weird, we usually hang out during Sundays. They never told me they were going somewhere else,” Annie comments while securing the front door of the shop. “Because you’re not interested in makeup.” Armin has a point and the other decides to drop the subject. He lets out a yawn before resuming. “Anyway, I’m starving. Let’s go eat somewhere. I Googled some new restaurants and I found a wonderful place.”

It took them a 30-minute ride by bus to arrive at the place Armin is referring to and the moment Annie stepped foot in the area, the scenery blew her away.

It’s a flower garden restaurant, boasting various kinds of flowers enveloping the place in a warm and vividly-colored embrace. It has inside and outside reception, but both are equally mesmerizing. Annie is speechless; never in her life has she imagined flowers could bring so much life into a place aside from a dainty flower shop. “Let’s take a seat over there.” Armin points at a round table decorated with daffodils outside of the establishment.

After the waiter takes their orders, Armin excuses himself to the toilet. Although, his leave may be meant a bit too literally unbeknownst to Annie. She simply sits there in awe, taking pictures of the place with her phone. She, however, noticed one thing. Nobody is around the place. She isn’t exactly sure if there are people inside the restaurant itself; she could barely see the inside due to the flowers hanging nearly everywhere. “It’s probably because it’s evening? Or maybe this restaurant’s still new,” she surmises.

“Pst! Armin, over here!” He goes straight to the back of the establishment where Hitch and Mina are waiting for him. The latter then hands over the bouquet she helped create with Armin. There’s also another one notably separated from the bunch. Hitch was the one who gave him flower recommendations. “I was worried that that idiot Eren might destroy these beautiful things, but he was, surprisingly, able to deliver them unharmed, thank God!” Hitch exclaims. When Armin takes the flowers, he notices a small note placed in front, secured by the baby blue ribbon.

_“I know you’re nervous right now, but you can do it, Armin. Remember what I said: just be sincere._

_Love you.”_

It’s a message from Mikasa. Reading the small note made Armin smile, but his tendency to feel anxious in untimely situations is a habit he cannot easily break. “...Do you guys think Annie will—”

“Stop right there!” Mina says. “I didn’t lie to my boss about getting sick just for you to lose confidence _now_.” Hitch joins in. Usually, she would tease him to no end even when he’s like this, but this is one of the rare occasions when she actually sounds serious. “There you go again with your doubts. We all know Annie may not be the most romantic person out there, but she’s human. Of course she’ll feel _something_ in that ice cold heart of hers. And we wouldn’t go out of our ways just for you to chicken out!”

Her words slapped some sense into him and even though he hasn’t recovered his confidence completely, the help of his friends is enough to give him a boost. “You’re right.” He breathes heavily. “All right. It’s all or nothing. Wish me luck.”

Annie immediately notices Armin’s hands placed behind his back when he came back. She grows even more skeptical when he doesn’t take his seat in front of her. “Annie, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“What?”

Armin pauses for a brief moment, the bouquet still hidden from her sight. “Do you still remember the daffodils back at your old home?”

_Back when they were pre-teens, Armin and Annie were neighbors. Armin was always a secluded child; he’d rather read his mountain of books than play with the other boys outside. He could never keep up with them, resulting in jeers from the lot. Thus, he never cared much about his surroundings, but his natural curiosity has led him to a life striving for more wisdom about the outside world._

_On his way back home from the park with his parents and grandfather, he saw a girl about his age watering their small garden. He found himself staring at her, wondering who she was._

_Instead of going inside their house, he tells his parents and grandfather he’d go see her, to which they agreed. He ran towards the girl and greeted her immediately. “Hello.” She cast him a glance. “Are you new here? What’s your name?”_

_“Annie,” was the girl’s curt reply._

_“I’m Armin!” But she turned her back on him not long after, focused on her chore. “Wow, you have a lot of those yellow flowers!” he commented in hopes of engaging her into some sort of conversation. “They’re daffodils.” Hearing her reply to him made Armin’s grin reach his ears. He then looked at her hair and green dress, then back at the flowers. “You look like you’re one of them,” he giggled. “A giant daffodil_ — _no, the princess of daffodils!”_

_She turned around once more to look at him, an amused smile plastered on her face. “You’re blonde, too.” Armin could only laugh, and when she joined, the young boy had believed right then and there that their harmonious laughter was music to his ears._

“Yeah, you told me I looked like a fucking giant flower and called me a princess.”

Armin winces in embarrassment. “We were kids back then, okay?! A-Anyway…” He clears his throat. “I didn’t think much about it, I just wanted to be friends, but over the years, I… I realized something else bloomed there aside from the daffodils.” With all his mustered courage and determination, he finally hands the bouquet to Annie. As expected, apparent shock is written all over her face. She’s never been the best at observing romance. “I don’t know much about flowers, but I’m certain you can tell what I’ve been meaning to tell you all these years with them.”

She accepts the flowers and closes her eyes to inhale their scent. They’re perfectly taken care of judging by the bouquet’s appearance. It’s then she realizes that Mina and Hitch are a part of this. “And… this.” Armin hands her a single yellow daffodil. “I didn’t buy it anywhere. I’ve been growing some myself.” Annie glances up at Armin, her surprise grows even more. Armin can see that she’s visibly shaken at his actions, but he knows they’re not out of negativity.

When he hands the daffodil to her, Annie tears up. The flowers he had been buying from the flower shop are meant for _her,_ and nobody else. Of course, the effort put in making the bouquet makes her heart dance in bliss, but the daffodil he has been tending to himself intensifies the feeling of love she has right now. “Armin…” Tongue-tied, she doesn’t know what else to say.

“I know you don’t like flowers that much, sorry...”

“No, you dumbass.” She holds the flowers tenderly. “I mean, yeah, I don’t. _Didn’t._ ”

“H-Huh?”

“...Thank you for making me love them now. I now understand why they’re so precious.”

Armin’s heart skips a beat. “Y-Yeah, no problem.” Smart as he may be, he seems to have missed the point of what Annie is trying to say.

She turns silent for a while. “And you’re precious. A cheesy, nerdy shithead, but precious. The next time you visit me in the shop, I hope it’s not because of the flowers I sell.” He takes the chair situated across from where she is and takes a seat beside her. “Of course, and I have been visiting you to buy flowers because of _you_. I want to visit you every day, see you every day, give you daffodils every day. Would that be okay? I promise I won’t get in the way.”

“You were never in the way,” Annie admits. “You’re like the sun to sunflowers. They get lonely when it’s not around. I get lonely when you’re not around. And I get lonely _and_ angry too when my food is taking time to get here.”

Armin bursts out in healthy laughter and Annie joins with her melodic giggling. It reminds them of the mellifluous melody they shared where they first met, by the flower bed of daffodils, where their friendship and romance bloomed.


End file.
